Shanghai Film Co., the Shanghai-listed cinema chain, distributor and animation rights owner, made a net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB18.5m ($2.8m) in the first nine months of 2026, down 86.7% on a year earlier, according to its third-quarter report dated Friday 30 October. Revenue fell 31% to RMB498.9m ($74.4m). The company blames a smaller national box office and lower revenue and profit from the films it leads.
Key facts
- January to September revenue RMB498.9m ($74.4m), down 30.96%; net profit RMB18.5m ($2.8m), down 86.72%
- Third-quarter revenue halved to RMB181.6m ($27.1m); quarterly net profit fell 96.2% to RMB3.26m ($486,000)
- Stripping out grants and investment gains, the company made a recurring loss of RMB9.1m ($1.4m) over nine months, against a profit a year earlier
- Operating cash flow was an outflow of RMB163.1m ($24.3m), which the company puts down to higher film revenue-share payments
- China’s box office for January to September was RMB29.68bn ($4.43bn), down about 29% on a year earlier by our calculation from China Film Co. figures
The fall is steep because the comparison is unusually high. In the third quarter of 2025, Shanghai Film’s revenue doubled to RMB360.6m and it earned RMB85.7m in a single quarter. Its 2025 third-quarter report credited the animated feature Nobody (浪浪山小妖怪), made by its sister studio Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which passed RMB1bn in August 2025 and became the highest-grossing Chinese 2D animated film, Cartoon Brew reported. This year there was no equivalent.
A thin quarter at the core
The third quarter shows how little the core business earns without a hit. Recurring net profit, which excludes one-off items, was RMB150,000 for the three months, down 99.8%. Over nine months the company booked RMB27.6m of net non-recurring income after tax and minority interests, which is what kept the reported figure positive. Before those deductions, the one-offs included RMB12.5m of government grants and RMB27.7m of fair-value and disposal gains on financial assets. Return on equity fell to 1.1% from 8.2%.
Total assets fell 11.5% from the end of 2025 to RMB2.79bn, while shareholders’ equity was flat at RMB1.67bn. Its parent, Shanghai Film (Group), holds 69.22% of the company.
The market behind it
Shanghai Film’s core businesses are Lianhe Cinema Circuit, the booking circuit that supplies films to its own and franchised cinemas, its SFC-branded cinemas, film distribution and licensing. In its half-year report the company said Lianhe took RMB1.38bn in the first half, including service fees, fourth among Chinese circuits but down 37.8%, and that its directly run SFC cinemas took RMB182m on the same basis, down 33.3%. Both gained slightly on market share.
That market is the main problem. China’s national box office fell 40.6% in the first half to RMB17.36bn, with admissions down 34.3%, according to Shanghai Film’s half-year report. China Film Co.’s third-quarter report puts January to September at RMB29.68bn from 752 million admissions; its report a year ago gave RMB41.95bn and 985 million for the same period of 2025, which works out at a fall of about 29% in takings and 24% in tickets by our calculation. Local films took 76.3% of this year’s total.
The gap with the rest of the world is wide. As we reported this week, box office outside North America and China is growing in dollar terms, and Gower Street has raised its 2026 global forecast despite China. In the US, Marcus Theatres posted record third-quarter revenue this week, while Japan’s Toho reported on 15 October that its half-year operating profit fell 25% against a record 2025.
Shanghai Film is trying to lean less on tickets. In the half-year report it said licensing of its animation library, which includes Havoc in Heaven, Calabash Brothers and the Yao-Chinese Folktales series, brought 19 new brand deals in the first half.
Our reading
These are the results of a company whose profit swings on one or two films a year, in a market that has lost more than a quarter of its takings this year. The animation library is a real asset, but on these numbers licensing does not yet offset a weak box office. The next test is the fourth quarter: whether China’s year-end and New Year releases narrow the gap, and whether Shanghai Film has a title of its own in that window.
Sources
- Shanghai Film Co., Ltd., 2026 third-quarter report (filed 30 October 2026, via cninfo)
- Shanghai Film Co., Ltd., 2025 third-quarter report (via cninfo)
- Shanghai Film Co., Ltd., 2026 half-year report (27 August 2026, via cninfo)
- China Film Co., Ltd., 2026 third-quarter report (29 October 2026, via cninfo)
- China Film Co., Ltd., 2025 third-quarter report (via cninfo)
- Cartoon Brew, ‘Nobody’ crosses 1B yuan (August 2025)
- European Central Bank, euro reference rates for 30 September 2026